The C$120bn (€74bn) fund has appointed Robert Tessier, a former chief executive of the Canadian gas company Gaz Métro, to oversee its recovery. His appointment means there have been changes to The Caisse's two top jobs in the past two months. Former chief executive Richard Guay stepped down in January.

One of Tessier's first jobs will be to lead the selection of a new permanent chief executive. The fund is currently being run by Fernand Perreault, the former head of its real estate division, whose interim appointment will expire on July 7.

The Caisse de Dépôt et Placement du Québec, which is one of Canada's most important financial institutions, has had a challenging year. The Canadian asset-backed commercial paper market – a type of short-term fixed income instrument – was one of the first markets to freeze up when the credit crisis began in mid-to-late 2007.

The Caisse was one of the prime movers in the market, and has been embroiled in efforts to get it moving again ever since. It is expected that a large chunk of its C$13bn exposure will have to be written off.

Last month, the rating agency Standard & Poor's placed The Caisse on "credit watch with negative implications" for the next three months, threatening its AAA-grade long-term issuer status.

In response, the fund said it would provide Standard & Poor's with all the information it requested, including details on the stability of its senior management, its strategy for handling the current investment climate, its risk management, and its independence from the Canadian government.

Its -25% return on its investments last year – a loss of C$40bn – sharply underperformed both its bespoke benchmark, which fell back -18.5%, and the average large-sized Canadian pension scheme, which lost 18.4%.

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Announcing the results two weeks ago, Perreault said the prime cause of the loss was "an unprecedented financial crisis" but he also conceded The Caisse had fared worse than most.

He said: "certain factors had a specific or more pronounced impact on our portfolio, such as our large holdings of asset-backed commercial paper and the cost of hedging the foreign exchange risk of our assets outside Canada, which increased significantly as the Canadian dollar fell."

Beginning in October, The Caisse has slashed its equity market exposure from 36% to 22% and increased its holdings of highly-liquid fixed income securities from 30% to 44%.